Philly

Now that I've been back a few days from my trip to ISTE 2011 in Philadelphia, I can reflect on what I did and what I learned.  I arrived on Friday before the conference to have a HUGE fiasco with the hotel.  I was lucky enough to have the school pay for my entire trip.  Hotel, airfare, and conference.   I called the week before I left to make sure the reservations was set and that I didn't need any sort of documentation from the school for the hotel.  I was assured that everything was okay. However, when I got there they said I needed the card from my school that I didn't have.   I quickly started making phone calls to my principals, building manager, and the school's administrative assistant.  I was able to get a hold of Savannah, our administrative assistant.  She talked to the hotel person, who refused to take the credit card over the phone.

The kicker is, that they had the credit card on file on the computer, but she refused to run it.  This went on for quite awhile. Finally, the hotel clerk, said she'd take all the cash I had plus my drivers license and give me a room for the night, but if they didn't get some form signed and faxed back to them by noon then I would have to leave.  Talk about being completely and utterly frustrated and exhausted.  I finally got to my room around 11pm and crashed.  My principal wasn't happy about what happened, and he quickly took care of everything in the morning as well as talked to the hotel manager.  I was able to get my money and ID back the next morning.  For the rest of the trip, the 2 ladies that worked the desk at night were not very cordial with me, but I don't care.  How do you take reservations over the phone?  I mean don't you have to have a credit card to reserve the room.  Lesson learned. Even if you call and confirm that everything is okay, take the authorization form anyway.

On Saturday I got up and headed over to the convention center.  My hotel was right at City Center, and the convention center was a block from the hotel.  Now, this place was HUGE.  I later learned the 15 football fields can fit in this building, and I believe it. It's 3 floors of massive floor space.  It was 4 city blocks long, and 1 city block deep.  The thing was just massive.  I walked the entire thing looking for the registration booths.  My first two seminars that day were amazing.  The first one was integrating technology into your lessons.  I learned how to create bookmarks and flip-books in Word.  Massive Posters in Excel, and puzzles in PowerPoint.   My second seminar was about Geocaching for the classroom.  It was by far one of my favorites of the whole conference.  We went caching in Philly and found 2 caches in downtown. 

This is where we found one of the caches.  The container was magnetic and looked like a bolt that was part of the statue.  We had people from all over the world in this workshop, and I met some wonderful educators that were eager to get the kids out of the classroom and to the outdoors.  I spent the rest of Saturday resting and relaxing in my hotel room.  I was extremely exhausted and ready for some rest.

On Sunday I had 2 more workshops before the official kick off for the conference.  I went to a workshop on Technology Time Savers for Teachers, and Google Earth.  Both of these gave me some much information and ideas for my upcoming school year that my brain was exhausted by the time I got done.    I took a little nap before heading to the keynote speaker.  The keynote for the opening was Dr. John Medina.   His keynote was very powerful and thought provoking.   Here's the full video from the opening keynote.  It's long, but I would highly recommend watching it. (Start the video around 30 minutes, up to that point is music and slides with information for the conference).

Monday was the first day I was disappointed in one of my workshops.   I enjoyed my Empowering Students to Write With Digital Tools.  I learned about several programs that would allow my students to create their own comic book, photo book, and pictorial essays.  The guy who lead this workshop was amazing.  During my Differentiated Instruction with Technology workshop I got a little put off.   I didn't pay for a workshop to not listen to you speak.  I didn't want to work in groups to do research on D.I.  I already know how D.I. works in the classroom, I wanted tools and resources to make D.I. somewhat less time consuming.   While I was in that workshop, there was a flash mob going on! I would have rather have been involved in the flash mob!

On Monday night I had my "Darker Side of Philly" Ghost Tour.  It was pretty exciting.  I hung out with a bunch of ladies from Superior, Wisconsin and they had me cracking up. One of my pictures had an "orb" (dust) in it and the ladies went nuts.  We went to the location that "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe was written, Eastern State Penitentiary, and one of the oldest cemeteries in Philly.  Here's some of my favorite pictures.

 This is Clark.  I LOVED his outfit.  The ladies from Wisconsin wondered where his lederhosen was.

 Ben Franklin's grave.  His grave-site last year raised more than $50,000 last year.  It was all in pennies! A  penny saved is a penny earned! 

 Oldest street in America. 

 The ladies from Wisconsin went nuts with this picture! 

 Edgar Allen Poe wall mural.  This was down the street from the Edgar Allen Poe Historical Museum.  The museum is located in the house where he wrote The Raven. 

 Eastern State Penitentiary.  I really wanted to skip a workshop and go back for the self guided audio tour. 

 I conquered the Rocky steps.  Little known fact, Sylvester Stallone only ran up the first 4 steps!  A stunt double ran up the rest.

Night time picture of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.

Tuesday was the last full day for me to be in Philly. My workshops that day included using Google Apps for Education for the classroom, and iLearn to iTeach with Apps for the iPad.  I was really excited about the Google Apps workshop.  I have talked to my tech guy from school and we are going to turn on email for my students as well as apps, and have the learn how to use them this school year.  I also want to be a Google Certified Teacher, and attend the 12 hour Google Academy for teachers next year.  I'm going to watch the submission information like a hawk.   Now the ipad workshop I was disappointed in.  Not because I didn't learn anything, but because they charged $110 for me to sit there and download free apps to look at for 3 hours.  REALLY?! I guess I was saved time in not having to search for them myself because I was given a wiki-site to go to, but come on.  Was that really worth $110 from 30 people? 

Tuesday night I went on a tour of Philly on a double-decker bus. My co-worker Scott (our tech guy), went with me.  We finally managed to get into this really yummy Italian restaurant.  I had the best gnocchi in a vodka basil sauce!   We went to the historic government square where Liberty Hall is located, the US Mint (where I learned it takes 3 cents to make a penny.  Is that even worth it?), The Franklin Fountain, and many other places.  Here's some of my favorite pictures from that tour. 

 This is city hall.  My hotel room looked out onto this beautiful building.  Each side of the building told a different story with it's statues. 

 The Comcast building was designed to look like a USB drive. 

 Scott and I on the tour bus. 

 Over look of the Schuylkill River. 

 Looking tough at the Rocky Statue. 

 This is in the art district.  The lights on the buildings change colors every 90 seconds.

Inside The Franklin Fountain.  This is the place to go for ice cream in Philly.  It was so bloody hot in the building.  I felt bad for the workers in their old time outfits. 

On Wednesday I went to my last workshop on interactive websites for the classroom.  It was taught by the same ladies that I had my first workshop with.  It was a wonderful way to end my conference.  On the way to the airport, I had an amazing conversation with my shuttle driver about the public education system in Philly, and how private schools are becoming the choice for the average Philadelphia household.  I explained that in KC it's the charter schools that are taking the place of public schools.  

I couldn't get on the plan fast enough!  Nor could I get off the plane fast enough.  Dade laughed with excitement as I got off the plane, and he didn't leave my side the whole night.  It was nice to get away and have some time to myself, but the longer I was away, the more I missed Clint and Dade.   I loved Philly so much, that I want to go back.   There was so much that I didn't get to do.  Clint and I are talking about going during my spring break next year.  I hope that we do! 

I'll try and post again in a few days with some of my new favorite sites that I discovered while I was there.